The art of weight lifting has been woefully deficient in providing a machine which takes care of the upper abdomen and side areas immediately adjacent an exerciser. Traditionally, the method for reducing or toning body muscles in that area included leaning exercises from one side to the other or sit-ups, which did not properly isolate those muscles to be serviced. Further, the person in average condition would require an extraordinarily high number of repetitions in order to provide the beneficial cellular destruction which is always associated with body building or toning.
One form of an alternative exercise which purports to provide similar benefits includes providing a barbell along the shoulder area of a person and having the arms draped thereover and providing rotation in order to reduce the number of repetitions while still stressing the desired muscles. Clearly, exercises of this type cannot safely be performed with any appreciable amount of weight since the rotation provides natural imbalances in the body geometry which can be of considerable danger when a truly effective amount of weight is provided thereupon, but more importantly one's own body is providing the resistance to limit the range of motion that is desired in the twisting exercise. Clearly, the momentum associated with providing this exercise with weights must be resisted by the body's own muscles in this type of exercise and a rotation beyond elastic limits of one's body could of course provide muscle tears, or even more serious injury.